Cheng Lie reviews intra-Asia slotting

Cheng Lie Navigation (CNC), the intra-Asia specialist subsidiary of the CMA CGM Group, has recently completed a streamlining of its service offer. As part of this exercise, Cheng Lie stopped slotting on a number of services by third-party operators.

These recent suspensions of participation were essentially carried out for three reasons: Firstly, CNC stopped slotting where the participation turned out to be unsustainable from an economic point of view. Secondly, the carrier ceased slot-buying on third-party services wherever, following network updates, CNC is now able to provide altenative solutions via its own services. Thirdly, there are cases where CNC’s slot agreement was terminated when the third-party carrier, on whose ships Cheng Lie bought capacity, decided to close a service.

The below-listed services have recently seen changes in participation:

1.) China-Vietnam-Thailand, branded ‘VTI’: a SITC-operated service. On this loop, CNC had to cease slotting since the main service provider decided to wind down the ‘VTI’. The three ships originally deployed on the service have been withdrawn successively. Since CNC was not buying slots in the ‘VTI’ but agreed to a slot exchange with SITC involving CNC’s ‘JTX’, the closure suggests that SITC is to loose its slot allocation on the latter service.

The ‘JTX’ is a Japan-Taiwan-Thailand connection on which CNC deploys four vessels: three owned 1,471 teu sister vessels (KUP CHANG, KUO CHIA, KUO WEI) and the chartered 1,756 teu TZINI.

2.) China-Korea-Thailand branded ‘KCT’: a service jointly operated by the Korean shipping lines STX Panocean and Heung-A, with three 1,440 sisters (CAPE FERROL, CAPE FARO, CAPE FORBY). Cheng Lie withdrew its participation since it demmed the slotting to be economically unviable in the present economic climate, especially with the recent drop in intra-Asia freight rates.

3.) Taiwan-Vietnam, branded ‘KHX’: a Merchant Shipping-operated shuttle between Kaohsiung and Haiphong. CNC has stopped slotting since the port pair is sufficiently covered by other offerings within the CNC service network.

4.) CNC slotted on the Japan to Taiwan leg of the NYK-operated ‘Hercules’, which connected Japan to India via underway calls at Taiwan and Vietnam. Since NYK decided to re-organise its intra-Asia offer in February this year, some of NYK’s changes affected CNC’s slotting. Cheng Lie stopped participation in the ‘Hercules’ when NYK split the service into two separate loops. At the same time, CNC however joined as a slot-buyer on NYK’s newly-created ‘VOLANS’ service, with a dense coverage of Japan, Korea and Taiwan before reaching Haiphong. CNC began to participate here in mid-April.

This participation followed an earlier slot allocation in the recently opened Hanjin and APL operated Japan-Taiwan-Thailand ‘JTE’/’JT2’.